Crafting Glass

(My Note: Watch how the dichroic glass earrings are fused. Also, Did you know you could make your own fusing kiln? Interesting…) Jerry Webmaster, CraftingGlass.com

 This is a sample clip of an instructional video for the building of a small glass fusing kiln. It can be used for the pre-heating of glass rods for beadmaking, and for annealing beads. Parts in 2005 cost $200 to build. Runs on 5 amps, 110 volts, so it just plugs in to a regular household socket. The video is intended for people with no kiln building experience, so is slow paced, thorough instruction with emphases on modifying the design to meet you own specific requirements. The full 2-dvd set also has demonstrations for the making of a complex bead, glass jewelry production, and the making of small mosaic dishes. Please see www.mayneislandglass.com for more info. Please look at my other sample clips from other videos, and my various tutorials on glassmaking.

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This video really illustrates the patience and skill required to make this complex dichroic glass item. I can see why the nicer beads and other dichroic glass objects cost a little more. Just watch the video (below this post) to see the technique of the glass artist involved. The video is only about 7 or 8 minutes but it takes over 20 minutes, according to the artist, to produce this bead. This work is from Devardi Glass http://www.devardiglass.com/index.htm  Please enjoy the video,

Jerry (Webmaster, CraftingGlass.com)

 An example of a lovely glass pendant

Just below this post is a new video that I think is one of the better ones I’ve seen on making jewelry using fused glass. It illustrates the basic technique without any spam or excess advertising to get in the way of the lesson. If you are a “newbie” to the glass arts then please pay special attention to the mention of “coefficient of expansion” (COE). This is important because all glass used in your project must be the same COE, such as 96 COE. If you don’t follow this rule  you will likely have breakage problems at unpredictible times.

To do fusing work you will, of course, need to have a kiln to heat and “fuse” the glass objects. And, two final notes of caution, be careful to avoid looking into the kiln without kiln glasses (special safety glasses) and wear heat resistant gloves and/or use tongs when handling anything going into or out of the kiln. 

Now enjoy the video below from RioGrande.com

Jerry (webmaster Crafting Glass)   

It is beautiful, whatever it is!

 (Learn more here) 

Have you noticed the lovely color reflecting from a quality camera lens as you turn it from side to side? How about the beautiful shimmering look of an expensive opal? Both of these impressive effects are similar to what you see when viewing a piece of dichroic jewelry or glass art. Dichroic glass was originally developed by NASA for an, as yet, untold use. Remember the awesome reflected colors and moonscape scenes from the astronaut’s face shields? To me those “reflections” have a look similar to some dichroic glass pieces even though there is no such glass in the shields. To create dichroic glass multiple thin layers of metal or metal oxides are electronically applied to glass in a vacuum chamber. There may be as many as 30 or 40 layers of coating applied to a single piece of glass for the desired result. Yet all of these layers together are only about 1/45^th the thickness of a piece of computer printer paper! Dichroic glass is now available for use by artists from dichroic coating manufacturers. Recently dichroic glass art is becoming highly popular because of its near gem-like appearance and the fact that no two pieces, even those make by the same artist, are ever totally alike. You can, for instance, have a “one of a kind” set of dichroic earrings for a quite reasonable price compared to almost any other one of a kind item (compared, say, to a designer dress).

Artists who craft glass love dichroic because they can create different looks by using more or fewer dichroic glass pieces added to the base glass. Also, the layers can be selectively removed in places, down to the base glass, by a laser or other tool. This removal of dichroic layers only in areas chosen by the artist creates images of great variety. Pictures of faces, animals, or abstract art can be achieved by careful use of this technique by the glass artist. Dichroic glass is usually added in layers to a piece of glass (plain or colored) called the base glass. The method used is called “hotworking” or glass fusing (see my fused glass category). A dichroic glass piece can be used in art directly, without fusing, but isn’t often used that way because of cost and other factors. To see the awesome beauty of dichroic glass art please view the pictures below. Remember that the dichroic art pieces are more striking in person than the pictures because as you turn the dichroic art in your hand the colors change in dramatic ways. For more information about dichroic glass (often called “dicro” please see the following site(s)

Artist Linda Abbott at: http://www.dichroicglass.net/index.asp

Thanks for looking! Jerry (webmaster Crafting Glass)

First two pictures courtesy of Linda Abbott  http://www.dichroicglass.net/ 

Opal-like Dichroic

Turquoise Dichroic                   

Photographer Zygzee Artist Milton Jacobson (from: http://everystockphoto.com/photo.php?imageId=3375443)

Dichroic Pendant or Earring